No, not really. Does he mean that 'evil' is a religious concept? I could go and kidnap a baby and torture it to death this morning. That's evil. And it would have nothing to do with religion, as I'm not religious, it'd be me being evil. I don't do things like that because I don't want to, not because a religion says it's wrong.

No, not really. Does he mean that 'evil' is a religious concept? I could go and kidnap a baby and torture it to death this morning. That's evil. And it would have nothing to do with religion, as I'm not religious, it'd be me being evil. I don't do things like that because I don't want to, not because a religion says it's wrong.

No, but it's not a bad start. For good people to do evil things requires... in general... that they honor some IDEA more than they honor their VALUES. I call this "clinging to beliefs instead of standing for values". Now, it just so happens that religion provides a fertile breeding ground for exactly this kind of malfunction: religion offers lots of different views one can adopt as beliefs, become slavishly loyal to, and allow to override one's innate sense of appropriate action grounded in sound values. For example, one can take some behavioral rule out of scripture and treat it as an absolute guide for all situations -- i.e. "don't work on the Sabbath". Then when a situation arises in which clearly something very BAD will happen unless work is performed on the Sabbath, the rule overrides any sort of good judgment, and the outcome is bad. This is a fairly benign example... there are many more insidious cases offered by history, of course. But religion doesn't have a lock on this phenomenon: the bottom line is that humans have a predisposition for addiction to concepts and beliefs -- they seem so solid and certain... they tempt with the offer of dispelling all uncertainty and the need to develop good judgment and wisdom. Only those who see the trap exposed by concepts and beliefs will have any real chance of avoiding it, and even then it requires constant vigilance.

No.